The Great GlassCatastrophe
by Wonkaverse
Summary: Willy Wonka told Charlie Bucket that he would inherit the chocolate factory. But Charlie and his family must survive a trip in the Great Glass Elevator before that happens...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: All material of familiarity is owned, copyrighted, and otherwise credited to the parties to which it belongs, that being Roald Dahl, who penned the book from which this story and its chapters are adapted, and perhaps Warner Bros. Studios for the production of the film adaptations of Dahl's book. This story merely borrows the characters for use in a different reality...

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><p>CH I: The Great Glass-Catastrophe<p>

Those who remember the story of Charlie, Mr. Wonka, and the marvelous chocolate factory of Mr. Wonka's, will also remember that Charlie Bucket and his family traveled to the factory to live there and so that little Charlie could work with Mr. Wonka in the factory. Yes, Charlie Bucket had been overjoyed, as his whole family had, to find that their luck had finally, finally changed. Half-starved by poverty and the coldness of winter, the four old people (still in their bed), Mr. Bucket and Mrs. Bucket, and Charlie, looked very much to adjourning to the magical factory where Mr. Wonka assured them there was plenty of things to eat, aside from candy, of course. However, things didn't go according to plan, and Mr. Wonka had a grave problem to fix, as well as an interesting opportunity before him…

_30000 Feet over the Atlantic Ocean_

"Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. It's a beautiful day for flying…the sky is mostly clear, scattered with a few clouds. We may feel some turbulence, but it's perfectly... what the hell is that?"

In the cockpit of the 747, the pilot and copilot looked aghast through the plane's windshield, both of them staring with wide eyes.

"Peter, did I just see what I thought I did? A flying box with people in it?"

"Either that, sir, or we're both seeing things…I knew we should've gotten another hour of sleep, and maybe a thermos of coffee, but…"

The pilot wasn't listening, still mumbling confusedly to himself. "It wouldn't be possible, not at this altitude. They would suffocate, and I didn't see any kind of propulsion system…"

After a moment, they each shook their heads, deciding to keep this to themselves. The pilot never noticed he had left the intercom on for the duration of the conversation.

What the two bewildered men had seen was indeed a flying box, the same one that had taken Mr. Wonka, Charlie Bucket, and the whole Bucket family out of the tiny house, and into the air, destined for the factory. However, there was a misunderstanding between Grandma Josephine and Mr. Wonka, resulting in an irreversible problem.

"Now look what you've done!" Mr. Wonka said, floating about.

"What happened?" Grandma Josephine called out. She had floated clear of the bed and was hovering near the ceiling in her nightshirt.

"Did we go too far?" Charlie asked.

"Too _far_?" cried Mr. Wonka. "I'll say we went too far! You know where we've gone my friends? We've gone into orbit!"

They gaped, they gasped, they stared. They were too flabbergasted to speak…save for Grandpa George, who uttered a nasty word, though no one heard him.

"We are now rushing around the earth at seventeen thousand miles an hour," Mr. Wonka said. "How does that grab you?"

"I'm choking!" gasped Grandma Georgina. She put her hands around her throat, as if she were drowning. "I can't breathe!"

"Of course you can't," said Mr. Wonka. "There's no air up here." He sort of swam across under the ceiling to a button marked OXYGEN and pressed it. "You'll be all right now," he said. "Breathe away."

"This is the queerest feeling," Charlie said, swimming about. "I feel like a bubble."

"It's great," said Grandpa Joe as he put his hands behind his head, reclining in the air. "It feels like I don't weigh anything at all."

"You don't," said Mr. Wonka, chuckling. "None of us weighs anything-not even an ounce."

"What piffle!" said Grandma Georgina, flailing her arms as she struggled to right herself. "I weigh eighty-five pounds exactly!"

"Not now you don't," said Mr. Wonka looking away to hide his smug grin. "You are completely weightless."

The three old ones, Grandpa George, Grandma Georgina, and Grandma Josephine were trying frantically to get back into bed, but without success. The bed was floating about in midair. They, of course, were also floating, and every time they got above the bed and tried to lie down, they simply floated up out of it. Charlie and Grandpa Joe were hooting with laugher. Grandma Josephine threw them a glare. "What's so funny?"

"We've got you out of bed at last," said Grandpa Joe.

"Shut up and help us back!" snapped Grandma Josephine.

"Forget it," said Mr. Wonka. "You'll never stay down. Just keep floating around and be happy."

"The man's a madman!" cried Grandma Georgina. "Watch out or he'll lixivate the lot of us!"

Meanwhile, thousands of meters below, two Oompa-loompas punched furiously at their keypads, glancing anxiously to the monitors before them. "Damn, damn, damn…" once muttered continuously, sweating profusely and looking like he might pass out any second. The Loompa beside him, though considerably calmer, was obviously not too happy either. "Mr. Wonka is going to have our hides for this, not to mention our jobs and payment. I told you we shouldn't have gone for a cocoa break right when Mr. Wonka was leaving. I told you we shouldn't have left the consoles. Now look what has happened! Our leader is stuck in orbit!"

"I get it, I get it!" the other sighed miserably. "Now all we can do is hope that we can get him back down, and that he might have some mercy on us later."

The first Loompa nodded grimly, but was distracted suddenly by a flashing on the console. "Hello…what's this?"

The Loompa next to him leaned over to look. "Proximity alert. The Glass Elevator is not alone up there!" He slapped his forehead suddenly. "Of course! The Space Hotel!"

"What?"

"The Space Hotel," he repeated, growing suddenly more excited. "Launched by the ol' US of A. Perhaps the 'accident' isn't so bad after all."

"What do you mean?" the other cried. "How can this not be bad?"

"Look," his companion said, lowering his voice to a whisper, "you and I both know we could be written up for this whole mess. But what if, in reality, we weren't being irresponsible? What if this wasn't an accident, and we were actually trying to give Mr. Wonka and his passengers the opportunity to see the Space Hotel?"

Realization dawned on the other Loompa, and he calmed slightly. "Good idea…I mean, you're absolutely right. It was a good idea to give them…" he winked "…the opportunity of a lifetime!"

His companion grinned, but froze when the voice of Wonka came through a speaker somewhere. "Operator, I hope you have a good reason for letting us enter orbit!"

The Loompas flinched, but one swallowed, hoping his voice wouldn't betray his discomfort. " Mr. Wonka, sir…Operator One here…I apologize for this inconvenience, sir, but Two and I…"

"Inconvenience!" Mr. Wonka's voice was angry, but quiet, and the operators would just imagine him, hunched over the Glass Elevator's tiny communicator in the far corner, the winner of the Golden Ticket affair and his family watching the candymaker extraordinaire in bewilderment.

Please, sir, hear me out."

There was a pause, and the operators feared the worst…

"Very well. Speak."

Operator One swallowed, fighting to keep his voice level. "If you will remember, Mr. Wonka, today is February first. As well as being the day of the Golden Ticket Tour, today is also when the United States is to send a vessel to the Space Hotel."

"Gadzooks!" Wonka cried on the other end. "Great sniveling snozzwangers! You're right!" He paused for a moment to muse. "If we could get there before the Commuter Capsule, we could get these starving people some decent food…surely the United States wouldn't mind. Just eight hungry people…couldn't put a dent in the food stores up there…" he turned his attention back to the communicator. "Alright, how close is the Hotel? I don't have proper scanners in this thing, so you'll have to direct me."

"Aye, sir. " Operator Two grinned at his companion. _Perhaps this would work out after all._


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: All material of familiarity is owned, copyrighted, and otherwise credited to the parties to which it belongs, that being Roald Dahl, who penned the book from which this story and its chapters are adapted, and perhaps Warner Bros. Studios for the production of the film adaptations of Dahl's book. This story merely borrows the characters for use in a different reality...

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><p>CH II: The Space Hotel<p>

Inside the Great Glass Elevator there was a good deal of excitement, especially when Mr. Wonka told them that they were going to the Space Hotel, which they could all clearly see now. It was a huge silvery shape, looking almost like a giant sausage, and the smaller, but still enormous Commuter Capsule just beyond it. Wonka floated up close to Charlie. "Let's beat them to it, Charlie," he whispered. "Let's get there first and board the Space Hotel ourselves!"

Charlie gaped. Then he gulped. Then he said softly, "You've got to have all sorts of special gadgets to link up with another spacecraft, Mr. Wonka."

"My Elevator could link up with a crocodile if it had to," Mr. Wonka said seriously. "Though that would be a very nasty procedure indeed. Just leave it to me, my boy!"

"What if they come after us?" asked Mr. Bucket, speaking for the first time. He was thinking of all the toothpaste caps he had taken from the factory he used to work at, and was worried he might get arrested for it.

"What if they shoot us?" Grandma Georgina asked.

"That wouldn't really matter," Wonka said with a smile. "The glass is bulletproof. It would take nothing short of an atomic bomb to shatter this elevator!"

"Like that makes me feel much better!" Grandma Josephine snapped, but Wonka ignored her.

"Off we go, then! But wait…this is a very tricky maneuver and I'm going to need help. We have to press lots of buttons, all in different parts of the Elevator. I'm not quite sure why I built it that way…but I suppose we can fix that after we get ourselves back home."

"You mean _if_ we get home," Grandpa George muttered.

"Come now, dear sir, you underestimate me!" Mr. Wonka said calmly, ignoring the glare of Grandpa George. "Now, Charlie, I shall take those two buttons over there, the white and black. " he made a funny blowing noise with his mouth and glided effortlessly, like a huge bird, across the Elevator to the white and black buttons, and there he hovered. "Grandpa Joe sir, kindly station yourself beside that silver button there, yes…that's the one. And you, Charlie, go up and stay floating beside that little golden button near the ceiling. I must tell you that each of these buttons fires booster rockets from different places outside the Elevator. That's how we change direction. Grandpa Joe's rockets turn us to starboard, to the right. Charlie's turn us to port, left. Mine make us go higher or lower or faster or slower. All ready?"

"No! Wait!" cried Charlie, who was floating exactly midway between the floor and the ceiling. "How do I get up? I can't get to the ceiling!" he was thrashing his arms and legs violently, like a drowning swimmer, but getting nowhere.

"My dear boy," said Mr. Wonka, smiling in amusement, "You can't swim in this stuff. This is air and very thin air at that. There's nothing to push against. So you have to use jet propulsion. Watch me. First, you take a deep breath. Then you make a small round hole with your mouth and you blow as hard as you can. If you blow downward, you jet propel up. If you blow to the left, you jet propel to the right, and so on. You can maneuver yourself like a spacecraft, but using your mouth as a booster rocket."

Suddenly everyone was practicing this business of flying about, and the whole Elevator was filled with the blowings and snorting of the passengers. Grandma Georgina, in her red flannel nightgown with two skinny bare legs sticking out of the bottom was trumpeting and spitting like a rhinoceros and flying from one side of the Elevator to the other, shouting "Out of my way!" and crashing into anyone who was unfortunate enough to be obstructing her path. Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina and Grandma Josephine were doing the same, while Mr. Wonka looked on, brow scrunched in consternation. "Please calm down, everyone! If we don't' hurry, those astronauts in the Commuter Capsule will get there before us! Don't you want to see the inside of the Space Hotel before they do?"

After several minutes, the old people grew tired and out of breath, and finally heeded Mr. Wonka's request. They settled into a floating position, while Mr. Wonka looked to Charlie and Grandpa Joe. "All set, everyone?"

"All set, Mr. Wonka," Charlie answered, hovering near the ceiling.

"I'll give the orders," Said Mr. Wonka. "I'm the pilot. Don't fire your rockets until I tell you. And don't forget who is who…the last thing we want is to go off course and smash into the side of the…" he caught a glare from Grandma Josephine, and shook his head., a smile coming to his face. "Never mind! Let's be going! We've wasted far too much time already! Charlie, you're port. Grandpa Joe, starboard!" Mr. Wonka pressed one of his own two buttons and immediately booster rockets began firing underneath the Great Glass Elevator. The Elevator leapt forward, but swerved violently to the right. "Hard port!" yelled Mr. Wonka. Charlie pressed his button. His rockets fired. The Elevator swung back into line. "Steady as you go!" cried Mr. Wonka. "Starboard ten degrees! Steady…steady…keep her there!"

Soon they were hovering directly underneath the enormous Space Hotel. "you see that little square door with the bolts on it?" said Mr. Wonka. "That's the docking entrance. It won't be long now. Port a fraction…Steady! Starboard a bit! Good….good…easy does it…We're nearly there…"

While all this was happening, the astronauts aboard the Commuter Capsule had watched, quite bewildered by the strange flying box and the even stranger astronauts inside. These men, Captains Shanks, Shuckworth, and Showler, had been chosen for their bravery and stellar records. But as they watched the glass spacecraft linking up with the Space Hotel, they could only wonder if all the recommendations and praises behind them really mattered at this point.

"What do you think they're doing, Shanks?" Showler whispered as he watched through the viewport, knowing the President and Space Control were listening in.

"I don't know," the other replied after a moment of thought. "The President says they want to blow the Hotel to smithereens, but if he's wrong and that so-called bomb really is a bed, well…we'll just have to wait and see."

There was no floating in the Space Hotel…special artificial gravity machines made sure of that. So once the docking had been achieved, Mr. Wonka, Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and Mr. And Mrs. Bucket were able to walk out of the Elevator into the lobby of the Hotel. As for Grandpa George and the Grandmas, none of them had let their feet touch the ground in twenty years, and they weren't about to change their habits. So when the floating stopped, they all three plopped back into bed and insisted that it, with them, be pushed into the Space Hotel. Though Mr. Wonka was visibly reluctant to do so, he and Grandpa Joe and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket managed to complete the operation, and the whole group soon found themselves in the massive atrium of the most magnificent construct imaginable.

Charlie gazed around the huge lobby. On the floor there as a thick green carpet. Twenty tremendous chandeliers hung shimmering from the ceiling. The walls were covered with valuable pictures and there were big soft armchairs all over the place. at the far end of the room there were five elevator doors. The group stared in silence at al this luxury. Nobody dared to speak. Mr. Wonka had warned them that every word they uttered would be picked up by Space Command in Houston, so they had better be careful. A faint humming noise came from somewhere below the floor, but that only made the silence more spooky. Charlie took hold of Grandpa Joe's hand and held it tight. He wasn't sure he liked this very much. They had broken into he greatest machine ever built by man, the property of the United States of America, and if they were discovered and captured, they would surely be jailed for life, or tortured for being terrorists, or worse.

Mr. Wonka was writing on a little pad he had produced from within his coat. He held it up for the others to read.

It said ANYBODY HUNGRY?

The three old ones in the bed began waving their arms and opening and shutting their mouths, suddenly remembering their empty bellies and bony frames. Mr. Wonka turned the paper over. On the other side it read: THE KITCHENS OF THIS HOTEL ARE LOADED WITH LUSCIOUS FOOD. LOBSTERS, STEAKS, ICE CREAM. WE SHALL HAVE A FEAST TO END ALL FEASTS!

Suddenly, a tremendous booming voice came out of a loudspeaker somewhere in the room. "ATTENTION! FOREIGN ASTRONAUTS! THIS IS SPACE COMMAND IN HOUSTON TEXAS, USA! YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON AMERICAN PROPERTY! YOU ARE ORDERED TO IDENTIFY YOURSELVES IMMEDIATELY! SPEAK NOW!"

"Shhh!" whispered Mr. Wonka, his finger to his lips.

There followed a few seconds of awful silence. Nobody moved except Mr. Wonka, who kept saying "Shhh, shhh…" though it was unnecessary, as everyone was frozen in foreboding.

"WHO ARE YOU?" boomed the voice from Houston, and people all around the world, watching the drama unfolding on their televisions, heard it.

"I REPEAT, WHO ARE YOU?" shouted the urgent angry voice, and five hundred million people crouched in front of their televisions, waiting for an answer to come from the mysterious strangers in the Space Hotel. The television was not able to show a picture of these mysterious strangers. There was no camera in there to recorded the scene. Only the words cam through. The television watchers saw nothing but the outside of the giant Space Hotel in orbit, photographed by the astronauts in the Commuter Capsule, who were following behind. For a whole minute, the world waited for a reply.

But no reply came.

"SPEAK!" boomed the voice, getting louder and louder, ending in a frightening shout that rattled Charlie's eardrums. "SPEAK! SPEAK! SPEAK!"

The three old ones cowered under the sheets of the bed, as if trying to hide themselves from the terrible voice. Mr. and Mrs. Bucket held each other, visibly quaking. Grandpa Joe and Charlie were scared, too, but they were significantly calmer, looking over curiously to Mr. Wonka, who was standing very still, eyes glowing with some unspoken plan of action.

"THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!" boomed the voice. "WE ARE ASKING YOU ONCE MORE…WHO ARE YOU? REPLY IMMEDIATELY! IF YOU DO NOT, WE SHALL BE FORCED TO REGARD YOU AS DANGEROUS ENEMIES. WE SHALL THEN PRESS THE MERGENCY FREEZER SWITCH AND THE TMPERATURE IN THE HOTEL WILL DROP TO ABSOLUTE ZERO. ALL OF YOU WILL BE INSTANTLY DEEP FROZEN. YOU HAVE FIFTEEN SECONDS TO SPEAK. AFTER THAT YOU WILL BE TURNED ITNO ICICLES!

ONE…TWO…THREE…"

Now, of course the Space Hotel had no such Freezer Switch. It would have been ridiculous to put such a dangerous thing aboard the vessel, especially since it would have been servicing the most influential individuals in the world and it would have been a danger to them if anything like that existed on the ship. But Charlie and his family didn't know this, and were afraid.

"SIX…SEVEN…EIGHT…"

Mr. Wonka had not moved. He was still gazing straight ahead, still quite cool, perfectly expressionless. Charlie and Grandpa Joe were staring at him in horror. Then, all at once, they saw the tiny wrinkles of a smile appear around his eyes. He sprang to life, spinning on his toes and skipping a few paces across the floor. Then, in a frenzied unearthly sort of scream, he cried. "FIMBO FEEZ!"

The loudspeaker stopped counting. There was silence in the Hotel, and all around the world. Mr. Wonka continued, barking words that at once frightened and mystified Charlie.

"BUNGO BUNI! DAFFU DUNI! YUBEE LUNI!"

Again, there was silence. The next time Mr. Wonka spoke, the words were fast and sharp, like bullets out of a gun. The noise echoed around the lobby of the Hotel, and again around the world.

The effect of this on the world below was electric. People watching in front of their televisions cowered in fear of the strange, unearthly voice that sounded angry and terrible. The men in Space Control in Houston all exchanged ominous glances, thinking for sure that extraterrestrials did exist. And in the White House, the President's advisory board watched the large television screen in the President's office with wide eyes and perplexed expressions, while the President himself was looking over at the Vice President and wondering how old she really was.

"What should w e do?" someone cried.

"Summon the Chief Interpreter," the Vice President ordered. She was a very large woman, and was rumored to once have been Nanny to the President. She was not someone to be taken lightly.

"Chief Interpreter here, ma'am."

"Quick, Interpreter, tell me what language those astronauts were speaking."

"I honestly don't know, ma'am." The man twitched, trying to avoid the Vice President's chilling glare.

"What do you mean? I understood some of it myself!"

The Chief Interpreter swallowed nervously. "What I mean, ma'am, is that it is not a language of this world. it is clear that these people have tried to learn some of our easier words. The rest of it was something I've never heard before…it's not of this earth!"

"Wait!" cried the President, jumping up suddenly and hitting one of his advisors with his elbow, "you mean to say that they could be from….from somewhere else?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Like where?" asked the Vice President, still glaring.

"Who knows? said the Chief Interpreter. "But did you notice how they used the words Venus and Mars?"

"Of course I noticed it," said the President. "But what should we do, then? These men from Mars…what should we do with them?"

"We've got to treat them nicely," the Vice President said. "The one who spoke just now sounded extremely cross. We've got to be polite, butter them up, make them happy. The last thing we want is to be invaded by men from Mars and Venus."


	3. Chapter 3

CH III: An Unpleasant Surprise

"The President of the United States will now address you!" announced the loudspeaker voice in the lobby of the Space Hotel.

The three old ones poked their heads out from beneath the sheets, eyes wary. Mr. and Mrs. Bucket slowly let go of each other. Charlie and Grandpa Joe blew out relieved sighs, while Mr. Wonka again put a finger to his lips. "Shhh…listen."

"Dear friends," said the well-known voice of the President over the loudspeaker, "Dear, _dear_ friends! Welcome to Space Hotel, USA! Greetings to the brave astronauts from Mars and Venus."

"Mars and Venus?" whispered Charlie, "You mean he actually thinks we're from…"

"Shhh…shhh…!" Mr. Wonka kept saying, though he was having a hard time keeping his snickering down. He was doubled up with silent laugher, his face twinkling in amusement.

"You have come a long way," the President continued. "So why don't you come just a tiny bit further and pay us a visit at our humble little earth? I invite all eight of you to stay with me here in Washington as my honored guests. You could land that wonderful glass spacecraft of yours on the lawn in the back of the White House. We shall have the red carpet out and ready. I do hope you know enough of our language to understand me. I shall wait most anxiously for your reply."

There was a click and the President went off the air.

"What a fantastic thing!" whispered Grandpa Joe. "The White House, Charlie! We're invited to the White House!"

Mr. Wonka, still shaking with laughter, went and sat down on the bed and signaled everyone to gather around close so they could whisper without being heard by the hidden microphones.

"They're scared to death," he whispered. "They won't be bothering us anymore. So let's have that feast we were talking about and afterward we can go explore the hotel."

"What about the White House?" Grandma Josephine asked. "I want to go and stay with the President."

"My dear dotty dumpling, you look as much as a man from Mars as you do a bedbug! They'd know at once they've been fooled. We'd be arrested in a second."

Mr. Wonka was right. There could be no question of accepting the President's invitation and they all knew it.

"But we've got to say something," Charlie whispered. "He must be sitting there in the White House waiting for an answer this very moment."

"You're right," Mr. Wonka said after a minute of thought. It's rude to ignore an invitation. "

For several moments, he appeared to think of something dark and mysterious, his eyes becoming strangely bright. Then, all of a sudden, he began to speak in a gravelly, growling voice that Charlie would never have thought him capable of doing. He recited some kind of strange poem that none of the Buckets had ever heard before, something about strange creatures called 'grobes' that oozed along in the night. Charlie shivered as Mr. Wonka became quiet once more.

When Mr. Wonka was about to begin another verse, he was interrupted by a frightful piercing scream that stopped him cold. The screamer was Granma Josephine. She was sitting up in bed and pointing toward the elevators at the end of the lobby. She screamed a second time, still pointing, and all eyes turned toward the elevators. The door of the one on the left was sliding slowly open, and the watchers could clearly see that there was something…something thick…something brown…something not exactly brown, but greenish-brown…something with slimy skin and large eyes…squatting inside the elevator!

Grandma Josephine had stopped screaming by now. She had gone rigid with shock. The rest of the group had become as still as stone. They dared not move. They dared hardly to breathe. And Mr. Wonka, who had swung quickly around to look when the screaming began, was dumbfounded as the rest. He stood motionless, gaping at the thing in the elevator.

What it looked like, well…Grandpa George summed it all up in one very rude word, which he shouted before shooting back under the covers. His voice carried over the hidden microphones to the earth below, and the President and his board exchanged flummoxed glances.

What the people in the Space Hotel saw now was a big egg-shaped thing, as tall as a big boy and as fat as the fattest man. Its greenish-brown skin had a shiny wettish appearance and there were wrinkles in it. Its eyes, about three-quarters of the way up on its body, were white and as round as teacups, each with a round red pupil in the middle. The pupils were resting on Mr. Wonka. But now they began travelling slowly across to Charlie and Grandpa Joe and the others by the bed, settling upon them and gazing at them with a cold malevolent stare. The eyes were everything. There were no other features, but the entire egg-shaped body was moving very slightly, pulsing and bulging gently here and there, as if the skin were filled with some kind of thick fluid.

At this point in time, all the elevators had come down, their doors steadily opening to reveal more of the terrible creatures and their hateful, hungry eyes. For a few moments, they just sat there, five of them in all, staring at the frightened people who could do nothing but stare back in flabbergasted silence. Then the oozy things began to shift in shape, each one abandoning its egg-form to become something snakelike, long and slender, though each one twisted itself into a different arrangement, until the people could see a strange representation of some word…SCRAM.

"SCRAM!" shouted Mr. Wonka suddenly, racing forward and using his momentum to thrust the double bed back toward the Great Glass Elevator. "Get out, quick!"

People have never run faster than Grandpa Joe and Charlie and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket…had they been participating in the Olympics, they surely would have won a medal. They all got behind the bed next to Mr. Wonka and began pushing like crazy, the three old ones having ducked under the covers again and were quivering with fear. And in ten seconds flat all of them were out of the lobby and back inside the Elevator. Frantically, Mr. Wonka began undoing bolts and pressing buttons. The door of the Great Glass Elevator snapped shut and the whole thing leaped sideways. They were away! And of course all of them including the three old ones in the bed floated up again into the air.

"Oh, my goodness me!" gasped Mr. Wonka. "Oh my sainted pants! Oh, my painted ants! Oh, my crawling cats! I hope never to see anything like _that_ again!" He floated over to the white button and pressed it. the booster rockets fired, and the elevator shot forward at such a speed that soon the Space Hotel was out of sight far behind.

"But who were those awful creatures?" Charlie asked.

"You mean you didn't know?" cried Mr. Wonka. "Well, it's a good thing you didn't. If you had even the faintest idea of what horrors you were up against, the marrow would have run out of your bones! You'd have been fossilized with fear and glued to the ground! They'd have gotten you! You'd have been rasped into a thousand tiny bits, grated like cheese and flocculated alive! Because those creatures, my dear, innocent boy, are the most brutal, vindictive venomous beasts in the universe!" Here, Mr. Wonka paused to lick his lips, which had gone dry in his anxiety. "Vermicious KNIDs! He cried. "That's what they were!" he sounded the K…K'NIDs, like that.

"I thought they were grobes," Charlie said. "Those oozy-woozy grobes you were telling the President about."

"Oh, no, I just made those up to scare the White House," Mr. Wonka answered. "But there is nothing made up about Vermicious KNIDs, believe you me. They live, as everybody knows, on the planet Vermes, which is eighteen thousand four hundred and twenty seven million miles away, and they are very, very brutish creatures indeed. The KNID can turn itself into any shape it wants. It has no bones; its body is really one huge, stretchy muscle…like a mixture of rubber and putty with metal wires inside. Normally it is egg-shaped, but it can become round as a ball or give itself legs or become as long as a kite-string. From fifty yards away, a fully grown KNID can bite your head off without even getting up!"

"Bite with what?" asked Grandma Georgina. "I didn't see any mouth."

"There are other things to bite with," said Mr. Wonka darkly.

Meanwhile, in the White House, preparations were being made. The President and his board, who had of course heard the commotion in the Hotel, but didn't really understand what was happening, thought the astronauts from Mars were going to the White House right at that moment, and were in a hurry to get there. They had seen the strange glass spacecraft jettison from the underside of the Space Hotel, and disappear into the distance. When they seemed to be gone, the astronauts aboard the Commuter Capsule asked the President if they could go aboard the Hotel now.

"Permission granted," said the President. "Go right ahead, Shuckworth. It's all clear now…thanks to me."

And so the large Commuter Capsule, piloted by Shuckworth, Shanks, and Showler, with all the hotel managers and assistant managers and hall porters and pastry chefs and bellhops and waitresses and chambermaids on board, moved in smoothly and liked up with the giant Space Hotel. "Hey, there! We've lost the television picture," called the President.  
>"I'm afraid the camera got smashed up against the side of the Space Hotel, Mr. President," Shuckworth replied. The President said a very rude word in response, and it was broadcast across the whole world…ten million children across the world began repeating it gleefully and got smacked by their parents.<p>

"All astronauts and one hundred fifty hotel staff safely aboard the Space Hotel!" Shuckworth reported over the radio. "We are now standing in the lobby!"

For a few moments, Shuckworth and the others expressed their amazement at the luxuriousness of the hotel, praising the walls and wallpaper, ceilings and carpets, furniture and fixtures. Their words of awe were disrupted by a loud shout and a nasty word, screamed by one of the hotel managers. "What is that? Coming out of the elevators!" suddenly the loudspeaker in the President's study gave a series of the most ghastly screams and yells. "What on earth's going on?" cried the President. "Shuckworth? Shanks? Showler? Where are you? What's happening?"

What had happened was the most horrible thing imaginable…KNIDs had come out of the elevators, as before when Mr. Wonka and the others had gone aboard. But this time, there was no warning. The KNIDs, as Mr. Wonka had explained, were very stretchy and flexible, and could reach great lengths without having to move too much. This is what one did as soon as the manager had screamed. In the blink of an eye, it had stretched from the elevator to where the terrified people were standing, and somehow grabbed the screaming, cursing man, who disappeared inside the KNID with a horrible, crunching noise. Then the other one hundred and forty-five people started screaming, and began to run for the exits, to get back aboard the Commuter Capsule. And from everywhere, KNIDs appeared; squeezing out of the air vents, oozing from between floorboards, materializing from under sofas and couches and curtains. They were very hungry, it seemed, because they began scooping up screaming people more quickly than the eye could see. The three astronauts, who were armed for an event like this, pulled out their handguns and began shooting at the monstrous brutes. It soon became clear, however, that bullets could not defeat these things…though they did bleed a black, oily substance that stained the carpets horribly, they did not seem to feel the pain, instead turning to glare at the astronauts with their terrible red eyes. "RUN!" Shuckworth cried, tailing behind the last of the bellhops. Shanks and Showler followed behind, not daring to look back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer**: All material of familiarity is owned, copyrighted, and otherwise credited to the parties to which it belongs, that being Roald Dahl, who penned the book from which this story and its chapters are adapted, and perhaps Warner Bros. Studios for the production of the film adaptations of Dahl's book. This story merely borrows the characters for use in a different reality...

* * *

><p>CH IV: The Return<p>

In the President's office, the board and president had settled into an ominous mood. The link between the Hotel and the study had gone silent.

"Something's happened," said the President.

"It's those men from Mars," said the ex-Chief of the Army. "I told you to let me blow them up."

"Silence!" snapped the President. "I've got to think."

The loudspeaker began to crackle. "Hello? Are you receiving me, Space Control in Houston?"

The president grabbed the mike on his desk. "Leave this to me, Houston!" he shouted. "The President, speaking, receiving you loud and clear! Go ahead!"

"Astronaut Shuckworth here, Mr. President, back aboard the Commuter Capsule- thank heavens!"

"What happened, Shuckworth? Who's with you?"

"We're most of us here, Mr. President…of course, _most_ is a relative term…Shanks and Showler are here with me, and a whole bunch of other folks. I think we may have lost a few dozen people."

"What do you mean lost?" shouted the President. "How did you lose them?"

"Gobbled up!" replied Shuckworth. "One gulp and that was it! I saw a six-foot man get swallowed up like you'd swallow a lump of ice cream, Mr. President! No chewing-nothing. Just down the hatch!

"But who?" yelled the President "Who are you talking about? Who did the swallowing?"

"They were huge, ugly things that could…hold it!" cried Shuckworth, his voice nearly drowned out by the screams of panic from the remaining hotel staff. "Oh my Lord, here they all come now! They're coming out in swarms! They're heading straight for…"

his words were lost in a crackle of static, the transmission having cut out. In his office, the President opened his mouth to say yet another bad word, but he was stopped by a fierce look from Miss Tibbs, the Vice President. "Shanks!" cried the President! Can you hear me? What's happening up there?"

But the astronauts could no more hear the President than he could hear them…the KNIDs had begun their attack, ramming the Commuter Capsule with their bodies, not breaking it, but denting it badly, and disabling the communications device. The ship's booster rockets were also crippled in the attack, leaving them helpless to escape from the KNIDs. "What should we do?" cried Shanks as he ran around in panicked circles. "None of the controls work!"

"It's all over, man! Game over!" Showler said this as he stared wide-eyed out the main viewing port, hands trembling.

"Get a hold of yourselves, both of you!" Shuckworth yelled at them. "It's not over until we're dead!"

"Like that's supposed to make us feel any better…" Showler muttered, though he stopped his pacing. "What should we do? What can we do? This hunk of metal doesn't have any weapons on it, does it?"

"No," Shanks said. "It's a commuter vessel, not a warship."

"Oh, hell." Shuckworth said suddenly, his eyes directed to the window. A hundred pairs of eyes followed…to see the KNIDs assembling, like a swarm of giant, murderous bees.

"Well gentlemen," Shuckworth said quietly, "It was a pleasure serving with you." Shanks and Showler nodded. "Same to you, sir."

"Hey, what's that?" a hall porter said abruptly, pointing. Shuckworth squinted. "It's the…the men from Mars and Venus!"

While the astronauts and staff were being chased out of the Space Hotel by the KNIDs, Mr. Wonka's Great Glass Elevator was orbiting the earth at a tremendous speed. They were trying to outrun an angry KNID that had decided to chase them, but were having no luck. And pretty soon, they found out that they had gone so fast and so far, that they had orbited the earth completely…and were right back at where they had started, in front of the Space Hotel, USA.

"Good heavens! It's the Space Hotel!" Grandpa Joe cried in disbelief.

"It can't be, Grandpa. We left it behind miles ago."

"Ah," said Mr. Wonka. "We've been going so fast that we've gone all the way around the earth and caught up with it again! A splendid effort!"

"And there's the commuter capsule! Can you see it, Grandpa, just behind the Hotel?"

"There's something else there, too, Charlie, if I'm not mistaken!"

"I know what _those_ are! Screamed Grandma Josephine. "They're vermicious KNIDs! Turn back at once!

"Dear lady," Mr. Wonka said calmly, "This isn't an automobile on a highway. When you are in orbit, you cannot stop and you cannot go backward."

"I could scarcely care! Just get us out of here before those brutes get us!"

"Now let's stop this nonsense once and for all" said Mr. Wonka sternly. "You know very well that my Elevator is KNIDproof. You have nothing to fear."

They were closer now and could see the KNIDs swarming around the Commuter Capsule.

"They're attacking it! cried Charlie. "They're after the Commuter Capsule!"

"I doubt very much if that capsule is KNIDproof, murmured Mr. Wonka.

"Then we must help them!" said Charlie. "We've got to do something!"

"And so we shall, my boy…" Mr. Wonka said, tugging his top hat firmly on his head. "But what can we possibly do with all those KNIDs? I'm afraid the Elevator doesn't come equipped with any weaponry, not yet anyway."

"Why don't we just tow them down?"

Mr. Wonka jumped. Even though he was floating, he somehow jumped, propelling himself upward until his hat touched the ceiling. Then he spun around three times in the air and cried, "Charlie! You've done it! That's it! We'll tow them out of orbit! To the buttons, quick!"

"Excuse me, Mr. Wonka," Grandpa Joe said mildly, "but what do we tow them with? Our neckties?"

"Don't worry about that," Mr. Wonka replied, floating over to his black and white buttons. "The Elevator is ready for anything! Let's go!"

Grandma Josephine, far from feeling heroic, screamed, but she was hushed by Grandpa Joe.

"Grandpa Joe, sir, kindly jet yourself to the far corner of the Elevator there and turn that handle! It lowers the rope!"

"A rope's no good, Mr. Wonka. The KNIDs will bite through a rope in a second!"

"It's a steel rope," Mr. Wonka replied. "It's made of reinscorched steel. If they try to bite through that, their teeth will shatter like spillkins! To your buttons, Charlie! You've got to help me maneuver. We're going right over the top of the Capsule! We'll try to hook it there somewhere and bring them down!"

Like a battleship going into action, the Great Glass Elevator moved smoothly into position over the top of the Commuter Capsule. the KNIDs immediately stopped attacking the Capsule and went for the Elevator instead. But the Vermicious creatures were no match for the Elevator, which as Mr. Wonka had said before was indeed KNIDproof. As the beasts made their fruitless skirmishes, Grandpa Joe lowered the tow cable, and the hooked end successfully caught a twisted mechanism on the top of the Commuter Capsule, holding fast. And now, with her booster rockets blazing, the Elevator began to tow the huge Commuter Capsule back to earth.

As Mr. Wonka set about congratulating everyone for their bravery, Charlie looked back to the Commuter Capsule some thirty yards behind him. it had little windows at the front, and in the windows he could clearly see the flabbergasted faces of Shuckworth,, Shanks, and Showler. Charlie waved to them and gave them a thumbs-up signal. No one waved back, though Shuckworth gave a slight nod of gratitude. They couldn't believe what was happening.

But the worst was yet to come…as everyone looked into the distance, past the crippled Commuter Capsule, they were able to see KNIDs regrouping and changing shape, all twisting into some serpentine form as they had in the elevators of the Hotel. And they began joining together like a great oily length of chain, and one even came up to the Elevator and began wrapping itself around it. Grandma Josephine screamed again while the others watched in stupefied silence. Mr. Wonka muttered something as he flashed a rude hand gesture toward the big evil eye of the KNID, which was pressed against the glass and glaring angrily into the Elevator. Charlie glanced quickly back to the Commuter Capsule. The sheet-white faces of Shuckworth, Shanks, and Showler were pressed against the glass of the little windows, terror-struck. Once again, Charlie gave a thumbs-up sign, though it wasn't as exuberant as before. Showler acknowledged with a sickly grin, but that was all.

Suddenly, Charlie looked out to the other KNIDs, who were reaching out toward the one that had wrapped itself around the Elevator. "Mr. Wonka!" Charlie cried, "Look at the others! What are they doing?"

They had now joined up with their friend around the Elevator, and were attempting to tug it up and away. Wonka growled. "They can't do that! _We're_ doing the towing around here!" he mashed a button on the ceiling, and the booster rockets on the Elevator fired intensely, the craft lurching downward. "We're going home! Reentry! Quick!"

It was an amazing sight…the Great Elevator streaking down toward the earth with the huge Commuter Capsule in tow behind it. but the long chain of KNIDs was coming after them, following them down, keeping pace with them easily, and now the hook of the leading KNID was actually reaching out and grasping for the hook made by the KNID around the Elevator.

"We're going to die!" screamed Grandma Georgina. "They're going to link up and haul us back!"

"I think not," said Mr. Wonka. "Don't you remember what happens when a KNID enters the earth's atmosphere at high speed? They get red hot! They burn away in a long fiery trail. They become shooting KNIDs. Soon these dirty beasts will start popping like popcorn!"

And so they did. First the KNIDs began to glow faintly, like the embers of a dying fire, then they suddenly burst into flames, sizzling like bacon in a frying pan. There was a distant screaming sound that could be heard as they continued streaking downward, presumably the wind, though Charlie imagined it was the KNIDs crying out in pain as they glowed white hot. A moment later, the remains of the horrible monsters disintegrated, nothing more than ashes. Mr. Wonka smiled to Charlie. "See? Shooting KNIDs. Happens every time they try to make atmospheric entry. That's why the people on earth are safe."

Grandpa Joe sniffed in amusement. "That was better than fireworks, I might say."

"And now we're saved," Mr. Wonka said. "But we have to be going now, yes? Enough adventure…we need to be getting back to the factory!"

"What about the Commuter Capsule?" Charlie asked.

"We'll be letting them go in a few seconds now." Mr. Wonka replied. "They have parachutes that will help them slow down when they're over the ocean. "

"How do you know we won't land in the ocean?" asked Grandma Josephine.

"I don't," answered Mr. Wonka. "But we all know how to swim, do we not?"

Though Grandma Josephine did not appreciate Mr. Wonka's sense of humor, there was nothing she could do about it. Down and down plunged the Great Glass Elevator. Nearer and nearer came the earth below. Oceans and continents rushed up to meet them, getting bigger every second…

"Grandpa Joe, sir! Throw out the rope! Let it go." ordered Mr. Wonka. "They'll be all right now, so long as their parachutes are working!"

"Rope's gone!" called out Grandpa Joe, and the huge Commuter Capsule, on its own now, began to swing away to one side. Charlie waved to the three astronauts in the front window. None of them waved back. They were still sitting in a kind of shocked daze, gaping at the old ladies and the old men and the small boy floating about in the Glass Elevator.

"It won't be long now," said Mr. Wonka, reaching for a row of tiny pale buttons in one corner. "We shall soon know whether we are alive or dead. Keep very quiet please for this final part. I have to concentrate awfully hard, or we may come down in the wrong place.

They plunged into a thick bank of clouds and for ten seconds they could see nothing. When they came out of the clouds, the Commuter Capsule was nowhere in sight, and the earth was very close, and here was only a great spread of land beneath them with mountains and forests…then fields and trees…then a small town. Then they could all see it: the spires and smokestacks of Mr. Wonka's Chocolate Factory, soon to be Charlie's…then the next moment they impacted, crashing through the roof of the highest tower with a loud bang and snapping and crumbling, and for a moment everyone feared the worst. Then all at once, the crashing stopped and the ride became smoother, as if the Elevator was riding on guides or rails, twisting and turning like a roller coaster. And when the lights came on, Charlie realized that for the last few seconds he hadn't been floating at all. He had been standing on the floor, Mr. Wonka was on the floor, too, and do was Grandpa Joe and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket and also the big bed. As for the three old ones, they must have fallen right back onto the bed, because they were now all three on top of it and scrabbling to get back under the blanket. After a few moments of traveling through some part of the factory, the Elevator stopped, the doors opening to reveal the interior of the Chocolate Room.

And standing there to meet them were hundreds of tiny Oompa-loompas, all waving and cheering. It was a sight that took one's breath away. Even Grandma Georgina was stunned into silence for a few seconds.

"These are the Oompa-loompas," Charlie told her. "They work here in Mr. Wonka's factory."


	5. Chapter 5

CH V: A Slight Misadventure

As all this was going on, there was a commotion in another chamber of the factory…the security room, where the Security Chief had just come in from a break. He glanced to the screens, which depicted the great gathering in the Chocolate Room. "Thank heavens…" he muttered to himself, glad that his leader had come back safely from the long side trip he had undertaken. He glanced over to the Loompas at Station Three. "Have you gone to the Elevator Operators yet and questioned them about the incident?"

One nodded. "Yes, sir. They claim they wanted to let Mr. Wonka and his guests see the Space Hotel and Commuter Capsule linkup. Though I personally think that story is a load of crap, they seemed pretty sure that…"

"What you think is irrelevant," the Security Chief said, cutting him off. "We'll have to see if Mr. Wonka wants to press charges against them for negligence. For now, I' m just glad he got back at all."

He looked back to the screen, where Mr. Wonka appeared to be explaining something to Charlie Bucket and his family. "Did the Duty Officer get checked out in the infirmary?" he asked, not looking away from the screen.

"Yes, sir," another Loompa answered. "He is being treated for some sort of mental disorder…I'm here to take his place."

The Security Chief nodded. "Very well. I should think this next shift will be easy; no naughty children need looking after, if you know what I mean. All we have to do is make sure Mr. Wonka and his guests remain safe, and that the orientation goes well."

The Duty Officer nodded. "I can only hope so, sir. Mr. Wonka has chosen his heir, but suppose that he is faced with disappointment? I don't mean to be pessimistic, but…" he gestured to the screen. "The boy's parents don't look very enthusiastic, and the three old ones in the bed…how are they supposed to help anything? They won't be of much use around here, unless they get out of bed, or accept a job in administration."

"Don't worry about it," the Security Chief answered. "I have a feeling Mr. Wonka's got it all figured out. He fixed the thing with the brattish children and their guardians, didn't he? And look, he's bringing out a bottle of…oh…." The Security Chief's voice trailed off, and the Duty Officer had to look to see for himself. Mr. Wonka was accepting a large unlabeled medicine bottle from an Oompa-loompa, and appeared to be explaining further to the three old ones and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket. "Enhance audio," said the Security Chief. "What does Mr. Wonka have up his sleeve this time?"

"…a very, very complicated mixture," Mr. Wonka was saying. "so you can wonder it took me so long to get it just right!" he held the bottle up high and gave it a little shake and the pills rattled loudly inside it, like glass beads. "Now sir," he said, offering the bottle first to grandpa George, "Will you take one pill, or two?"

"Will you solemnly swear," said Grandpa George, "That it will do what you say it will and nothing else?"

Mr. Wonka placed his free hand over his heart. "I swear it."

Charlie edged forward. Grandpa Joe came with him. The two of them always stayed close together. "Please excuse me for asking," Charlie said softly, "But ware you really sure that you've got it quite right?"

"Whatever makes you ask a funny question like that?"asked Mr. Wonka.

"I was just thinking of the gum you gave to Violet Beauregarde," Charlie said.

"So that's what's bothering you!" cried Mr. Wonka. "But don't you understand, my dear boy, that I never gave that gum to Violet? She snatched it without permission. And I shouted, "Stop! Don't! Spit it out!" But the silly girl took no notice of me. Now Wonka-Vite is altogether different. I am offering it to your grandparents. I am recommending them. and when taken according to my instruction, they are as safe as sugar candy!"

A grim look came to the Security Chief's face as he listened, the Duty Officer looking over to him curiously. "What is it, sir?"

"That bottle…the medicine. Have you ever heard of it?"

"Yes, sir," the Duty Officer nodded. "Wonka-Vite. Makes you younger by twenty years if you swallow it."

The Security Chief looked surprised. "How did you know? That information is classified."

"My grandfather was the test-loompa who was rejuvenated by the successful formula." He smiled bitterly. "Better for him than for some of my other relatives, who were part of the hundred thirty-one unsuccessful experiments."

"So I heard," the Chief murmured. "But I can only hope that it works for these old people. If they don't follow Mr. Wonka's instructions…"

At that moment, they heard some kind of argument going on in the Chocolate Room. The three old ones were squabbling over the bottle of Wonka-Vite while Charlie and Grandpa Joe looked on helplessly. Mr. Wonka was walking away from the arguing, shoulders slumped.

"Here we go again," the Security Chief said lowly, rubbing his temples.

"What do you mean?" The Duty Officer asked.

"Well, when people don't listen to Mr. Wonka…"

Before he could finish his answer, it happened. The three old ones had swallowed all the Wonka-Vite that was in the bottle, not sparing any for Mr. and Mrs. Bucket or Grandpa Joe. The result was terrible. Grandpa George and Grandma Josephine became far too young, and were now rosy-cheeked babies, crying at their respective sides of the bed. Grandma Georgina was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened!" the Duty Officer asked, eyes wide.

"The same thing that happened to your relatives, I would assume," the Chief replied ominously. They watched as Mr. Wonka came back, his brow furrowed in frustrated perplexity as he assessed the situation and explained what had happened to Grandpa George and Grandma Josephine and Grandma Georgina and Grandma Josephine. In the background, Oompa-loompas sang a song about a similar tragedy, when a young girl didn't read the warning label of a medicine bottle and had to suffer for it the rest of her life. The Chief shook his head sadly. "No one listens. And when bad things happen, they try to blame it on someone else."

"Will Mr. Wonka be able to get the old woman back?" the Duty Officer asked curiously.

"Well, he got all your relatives back, didn't he? I'm sure he can do the same for Georgina." The Chief said confidently. "But it looks like it's up to the heir, now."

When Charlie heard that there was a chance to bring Grandma Georgina back, he summoned all his courage and said yes, he wanted to save her. Mr. Wonka smiled and rushed him back to the Great Glass Elevator, pausing only to glance back at the surreal scene before him…two babies in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Bucket and Grandpa Joe. They were assisted by several Oompa-loompas, who tried to make themselves useful, of course. Though Mr. Bucket didn't look particularly happy, nothing could be done about it at the moment. Mr. Wonka turned to Charlie. "Let's go now." he pressed a button inside the Elevator, and the doors closed, and they were off, sinking deep into the earth. The Elevator gathered speed, the rooms and chambers rushing past in a nearly unrecognizable blur. Sometimes Charlie was able to tell what he was seeing…a tiny village with Oompa-loompas walking in the streets, massive underground lakes bordered by forests and mountains, strange gushing fountains…

"You realize," Mr. Wonka said, "that what you saw earlier when you went around the factory with all hose naughty children was only a tiny corner of the establishment. It goes down for miles and miles. And as soon as possible I shall show you all the way around slowly and properly. But that will take three weeks. Right now we have other things to think about and I have important things to tell you. Listen carefully to me, Charlie. I must talk fast, for we will be there in a couple of minutes."

"I suppose you guessed," Mr. Wonka went on, "what happened to all those Oompa-loompas in the Testing Room when I was experimenting with Wonka-Vite. Of course you did they disappeared and became Minuses just like your Grandma Georgina. The recipe was miles to strong. One of them actually became minus eighty-seven!"

"You mean he's got to wait eighty-seven years before he can come back?" Charlie asked.

"That's what kept bugging me, my boy. After all, one can't allow one's friends to wait around as miserable minues for eighty-seven years. so what did I do? 'Willy Wonka', I said to myself, 'if you can invent something to make people younger, then surely to goodness you can also invent something to make people older! So I tracked down very old and ancient things and took an important thing from each one of them. I mixed them all together, and successfully produced a powerful liquid that makes people older."

"Did you rescue all the Minuses, Mr. Wonka?"

"Every single one of them. One hundred and thirty-one, all told! But good heavens, we're nearly there! I must stop talking now and watch where we're going."

In the Security Room, the Chief could only watch the frustrated Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, feeding the wriggly babies who had once been old people. He sniggered in amusement, though the Duty Officer didn't share his hilarity. "How long do you think it's going to take for them to rescue the Grandmother?"

"I honestly don't know," the Chief admitted. "It could take minutes, hours, days…I heard that Mr. Wonka was absent for almost a week at one time on a similar expedition, but I am sure he is more than capable of handling himself. He's no fool, I know."

"Indeed," the Duty Officer agreed, nodding slowly. "All the same, I just hope he gets back soon. The suspense is terrible, and…" his eyes caught some movement on the screen, something appearing on the bed, as if it had materialized out of nowhere. Someone screamed, presumably Mrs. Bucket, and the Duty Officer seconded the notion with a loud curse. The Security Chief looked up, as did all the other Loompas in the Security Room. "Well," the Chief said after a pause, "That's…interesting."

"We return in triumph, Charlie!" Mr. Wonka cried as the Elevator began to slow down. "Once more you and your dear family will be together again!"

The Elevator stopped. The doors slid open. And there was the Chocolate Room and the chocolate river and the Oompa-loompas and in the middle of it all the great bed belonging to the grandparents. "Charlie!" said Grandpa Joe, rushing forward. "Thank heavens you're back!" Charlie hugged him. then he hugged his mother and father. "Is she here?" he asked. "Grandma Georgina?"

Nobody answered. Nobody did anything except Grandpa Joe, who pointed to the bed. He pointed but he didn't look where he was pointing. None of them looked at the bed…except Charlie. He walked past them all to get a better view, and he saw at one end the two babies, Grandma Josephine and Grandpa George, both tucked in and sleeping peacefully. At the other end…

"Don't be alarmed," said Mr. Wonka, running up and placing a hand on Charlie's arm. "She's bound to be just a teeny bit over-plussed. I warned you about that."

"Is _that_ what he calls it?" the Duty Officer cried from his seat, looking green in the face. "She's a fossil!"

And so she was. Her face was like a pickled walnut. There were such masses of creases and wrinkles that the mouth and eyes and even the nose were sunken almost out of sight. Her hair was pure white and her hands, which were resting on top of the blanket, were just little lumps of wrinkly skin. Mr. Wonka was ecstatic. "My dear lady!" he cried, advancing to the edge of the bed and clasping one of those tiny wrinkled hands in both of his. "Welcome home! And how are you feeling on this bright and glorious day?"

The Loompas in the Security Room watched the bizarre exchange in silence, the Duty Officer clenching his jaw in morbid fascination. "Do you really think he can fix this, sir?" he asked the Chief.

"Just watch," the other replied quietly, gesturing to the screen. They observed another argument with Mrs. Bucket, who had grown quite ill-tempered through this whole event, but Mr. Wonka finally persuaded her to let him fix her mother. He summoned an Oompa-loompa, who produced another bottle of Wonka-Vite, which Wonka administered to Grandma Georgina himself. Within the passing of several minutes, she was back to her former age, and was as grouchy as ever. The Duty Officer let out a relieved sigh. "Glad he got that sorted out."

"You and me both," the Chief said. "But he still has to fix the other two."

They looked up to the screens again, watching as Mr. Wonka fed some oily black liquid to the babies, with the help of Charlie and Grandpa Joe. The liquid was black and oily, not unlike KNID blood, which made the Duty Officer wonder…


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**: All material of familiarity is owned, copyrighted, and otherwise credited to the parties to which it belongs, that being Roald Dahl, who penned the book from which this story and its chapters are adapted, and perhaps Warner Bros. Studios for the production of the film adaptations of Dahl's book. This story merely borrows the characters for use in a different reality...

* * *

><p>CH VI: Good News and Bad News<p>

Unlike the Wonka-Vite, which had taken minutes to reach full effect, the Vita-Wonk, which was the name of the antidote, worked in an instant. Where there had once been babies were now two old people. Charlie hugged them each, smiling. "I'm glad you're all back to normal. You _must_ want to get out of bed now, after all the adventures we've had together!"

Just as Grandma Josephine was about to snap a crass reply, there was a sudden commotion among the Oompa-loompas at the far end of he Chocolate Room. there was a buzz of excited chatter and a lot of running about and waving of arms, and out of all this a single Oompa-loompa emerged, and came rushing toward Mr. Wonka, carrying a huge envelope in his hands. He came up close to Mr. Wonka and started whispering something. Mr. Wonka bent down to listen.

"Outside the factory gates?" cried Mr. Wonka. "_Men_! _What sort of men...yes, but do they look dangerous_?"…._and a what_..._a helicopter_..._and these men came out of it_..._they gave you this_?" Mr. Wonka grabbed the huge envelope and quickly tore it open and pulled out a folded letter inside. There was absolute silence as he skimmed swiftly over what was written on the paper. Nobody moved. Charlie began to feel cold. he felt sure something dreadful was about to happen. There as a definite smell of danger in the air. The men outside the gates, the helicopter, the nervousness of the Oompa-loompas…he was watching Mr. Wonka's face, searching for a clue, for some change in expression that would tell him how bad the news was.

"Great whistling whangdoodles!" cried Mr. Wonka, leaping up high in the air. "Snorting snozzwangers!" he yelled, picking himself up and waving the letter about as though he were swatting mosquitoes. "Listen to this!" he began to read aloud.

TO MR. WILLY WONKA

SIR

TODAY THE ENTIRE NATION, INDEED THE ENTIRE WORLD IS REJOICING AT THE SAFE RETURN OF OUR COMMUTER CAPSULE FROM SPACE WITH 114 SOULD ON BOARD. HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE HELP THEY RECEIVED FROM AN UNKNOWN SPACESHIP, THESE 114 PEOPLE WOULD NOT HAVE COME BACK. IT HAS BEEN REPORTED TO ME THAT THE COURAGE DISPLAYED BY THE EIGHT ASTRONAUTS ABOARD THIS UNKNOWN SHIP WAS EXTRAORDINARY. OUR RADAR STATIONS, BY TRAKING THIS SPACSHIP ON ITS RETURN TO EARTH, HAVE DISCOVERED THAT IT SPLASHED DOWN IN A PLACE KNOWN AS WONKA'S CHOCOLATE FACTORY. THAT, SIR, IS WHY THIS LETTER IS BEING DELIVERED TO YOU.

I WISH NOW TO SHOW THE GRATITUDE OF THE NATION BY INVITING ALL EIGHT OF THOSE INCREDIBLY BRAVE ASTRONAUTS TO COME AND STAY IN THE WHITE HOUSE FOR A FEW DAYS AS MY HONORED GUESTS.

I AM ARRANGING A SPECIAL CELEBRATION PARTY IN THE BLUE ROOM THIS EVENING AT WHICH I MYSELF WILL PIN MEDALS FOR BRAVERY UPON ALL EIGHT OF THESE GALLANT PEOPLE. THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSONS IN THE LAND WILL BE PRESENT AT THIS GTHERING TO SALUTE THE HEROES WHOSE DAZZLING DEEDS WILL BE WRITTEN FOREVER IN THE HISTORY OF OUR NATION.

A HELICOPTER AWAITS ALL EIGHT OF YOU OUTSDE THE FACTORY GATES. I MYSELF AWAIT YOUR ARRIVAL AT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH THE VERY GREATEST PLEASURE AND IMPATIENCE.

I BEG TO REMAIN, SIR.

MOST SINCERELY YOURS,

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Mr. Wonka stopped reading. And in the stillness that followed, Charlie could her people breathing. He could hear them breathing much faster than usual. Grandpa Joe was the first to say something…he gave a whoop of joy and began dancing round, taking Charlie by the hands and swinging him in circles. "We're going, Charlie! We're going to the White House after all!"

Mr. Wonka clapped his hands. "Come along, come along! We mustn't dilly! We mustn't dally! It would be rude to keep the President waiting!" he ushered Grandpa Joe and Charlie and Mr. and Mrs. Bucket to the door that would take them to the main atrium of the factory and out to the main gates.

"Hey!" cried Grandma Georgina from the bed, "What about us? We were invited, too!"

Mr. Wonka turned and looked at them. "Of course it includes you," he said. "But we can't possibly fit that bed into the helicopter. It wouldn't go through the door."

"You mean…you mean if we don't get out of bed we can't come?" said Grandma Georgina.

"That's exactly what I mean," Mr. Wonka affirmed. "Keep going, Charlie," he whispered, giving Charlie a little nudge. They began walking toward the door again. Suddenly behind them there was a great swoosh of blankets and bed sheets as the three old people all exploded out from the bed altogether. They came sprinting after Mr. Wonka, shouting, "Wait for us!"

It was amazing how fast they were running across the floor of the great Chocolate Room. Mr. Wonka and Charlie and the others stood staring at them in wonder. They leaped across paths and over little bushes like gazelles in springtime, with heir bare legs flashing and nightshirts flying out behind them. Abruptly Grandma Josephine stopped. "Wait!" she cried. "We must be mad! We can't go to a famous party in our nightshirts! We can't stand there practically naked in front of al those people while the President pins medals all over us!"

"Don't you have any other clothes with you at all?" asked Mr. Wonka.

"Of course we don't!" exclaimed Grandma Josephine. "We haven't been out of bed for twenty years!"

"Couldn't you buy something from a store?" suggested Mr. Wonka.

"What with? We don't have any money!"

"Money!" cried Mr. Wonka, a grin on his face. "Don't you go worrying about something so vulgar as money. I've got plenty of _that_!"

"Listen," said Charlie, "Why could we ask the helicopter to land on the roof of a big department store on the way over, then we can all pop downstairs and buy exactly what we want?" "Charlie!" cried Mr. Wonka, grasping him by the hand, "What would we ever do without you? You're brilliant! Come along everybody! We're off to stay at the White House!"

They all linked arms and went dancing out of the Chocolate Room and along the corridors and out through the front door into the open where the big helicopter was waiting near the factory gates. A group of extremely important looking men came toward them and bowed.

"Well, Charlie," said Grandpa Joe, "It's certainly been a busy day."

"It's not over yet," Charlie said, laughing. "It hasn't even begun."

It was that very moment that became the most pivotal in the history of Mr. William Wonka, who had been as glad as the others to be going to the White House to see all the high ranking officials of America. It would be an honor to go there, to meet them…or it would have been. Because at that moment, as soon as Charlie had finished speaking, the sound of helicopter blades thwock-thwocking became clear. At first, everyone assumed it was the President's helicopter that had come to get them, but its rotors were still and motionless. Mr. Wonka tipped his head in puzzlement, but didn't move until he noticed an Oompa-loompa running frantically toward them. "GET DOWN!" he screamed at them, still running. Wonka did, instinctively, but the important-looking escorts froze at the sound of the voice, wondering at the tiny form of the Oompa-loompa, while the Bucket family stood stock still, looking for the source of danger. "Get down you fools!" Wonka shouted, but it was too late; the sleek form of another helicopter rose above the factory gates, its silvery shape glinting in the bright light. Then all hell broke loose as a machine gunner aboard the chopper opened fire, bullets throwing up clouds of powder. The sound of gunfire seemed to break the Buckets' paralysis, and they ran for the President's helicopter, along with the men who had come to get them. Wonka, meanwhile, remained where he stood, watching the horrible scene unfolding. The gunner, who had been ordered to destroy the winner of the Golden Ticket Contest, ignored the frozen Wonka entirely, instead shooting at the helpless Buckets, who ran as fast as they could. But even that was fast enough; the four old people, who had not been out of their bed for twenty years, went down first, since they hadn't been walking more than an hour. Then Mr. and Mrs. Bucket were struck, their legs shot out from beneath them. Then, finally, poor little Charlie Bucket, who had reached the helicopter and was frantically trying to get in, was hit in the back with a torrent of bullets, and he fell to the ground, his sweet, innocent face now lifeless and cold. As a final measure, the machine-gunner fired off some kind of rocket, hitting the other helicopter near its fuel tank, and the whole thing went up in flames, the shrapnel impaling the officials, who screamed and writhed on the ground, the snow beneath them turning red with their blood. But Willy Wonka saw none of this; all he could see was the helicopter above him, hovering menacingly for a few moments after its work was done. Then it flew back over the wall, the insignia on its tail glimmering for a moment before it disappeared entirely. The logo read _Chadworth_.

After the helicopter left, Willy stood in the snow for some time…minutes, hours perhaps. The Oompa-loompa who had tried to warn them stood with him, slapping his arms and chest against the cold as he silently regarded the carnage left over from the attack. The bodies of the Buckets were slightly charred from the explosion, but the snow had preserved them mostly, the places around their bodies blackened by smoke and oil. "Mr. Wonka?" the Oompa-loompa said finally, his voice gentle as he tugged his leader by the pantleg. Wonka finally looked down numbly, his eyes clouded with pain. "He's gone…my heir. Killed. And I couldn't help him."

The Loompa swallowed, bewildered by his leader's deep grief. "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Wonka, but we didn't see the helicopter coming until it was too late. I tried to get out here as fast as I could…"

Wonka kept mumbling to himself, oblivious to what the other was saying. "I couldn't help his family, either, which isn't too bad, since I didn't like them very much either. Could barely tolerate the grandmothers, though the grandfathers weren't too bad. Grandpa Joe seemed nice, and I was just beginning to like him." He sighed deeply, then looked down to the Loompa, his eyes clear. "I'm sorry, what were you saying just now?"

"Just that…"

Wonka cut him off. "Never mind. There's more important things right now, mainly the invitation of the President. He won't be happy to find out that his helicopter was destroyed and his officials were killed, but that can't be helped. I could probably go see him in one of our transports, but I don't think it would be proper to go now, in light of this…accident."

He lowered his head, his eyes misty again. "What am I going to do? The whole Golden Ticket operation was pointing to this day, when I would get my heir and orient him and his family, so they could run the factory when I'm gone. But it seems like all that has been wasted." He shook his head sadly.

The Oompa-loompa could only nod grimly. "What should we do with the bodies, sir? We can't just leave them out there…the FDA will be coming after us for sure."

"You're right," Wonka said, wiping his eyes. "No time for grieving now." He hardened his face, looking out over the wreckage. "Get the bodies inside, and prepare them for cremation."

"Cremation, sir?"

"Yes…" Wonka nodded firmly. "In the incinerators. It's the only way to do it."

The Loompa nodded in acknowledgement, but paused to ask a question. "What about the heir…Charlie? Should we have a memorial for him or something? I mean…we can't just let him go so soon. Then all our efforts will have gone for nothing."

Willy brightened suddenly, as if struck by the Loompa's words. "You're right. It would be a waste to do that…" he looked to where Charlie's lifeless body lay, throat tightening in grief. "Have him sent to the Research Labs. I will be there shortly."

Willy Wonka walked into the laboratory for the second time in one day, feeling the irony in what he was thinking about doing. It was in this very chamber that the four naughty children who had toured the factory had been…revived…after meeting some kind of demise through various "accidents" which had occurred during the course of the excursion through Wonka's Factory. And it was here, he hoped, that some answer to this newest dilemma might be procured. The head scientist stepped up to Wonka, a curious look on his face. "Hello again, sir. Quite an odd day we've been having, yes?"

Willy nodded, his mind subdued.

"The scientist glanced to the shrouded body that lay on a table nearby, next to a row of bubbling vats. "It's a shame he had to go that way. He was too young. But please, sir; tell me exactly what it is you have in mind for the future. Did you bring him here because you want us to try cloning him, like the other children?"

"Could you really do that?"

"Of course. We did it with those nasty kids, despite the complications we were faced with. The Salts came out okay, though, since we were able to get a pure sample of their DNA." He gestured to the body. "And with him here, nearly intact, we will definitely get a workable sample. We could develop an exact physical replica of him within a couple of hours."

"Physical replica… What of his mind?" Willy asked, quietly.

"Well…that's the tricky part. Most of what we know about Charlie Bucket is from his school records, and the brief exposure to his unique character during the tour and expedition in the Elevator. I couldn't promise he would turn out to be the same as he was before."

Wonka sighed. "And therefore is the problem. I didn't really think you could bring him back, but I brought him in here because I had some hope that somehow, we might figure a way out of this mess. I would sure hate to have to send out Golden Tickets again, and endure another terrible day with a bunch of terrible children and their despicable guardians. There are only a few good people out there, and little Charlie was one of them. He wasn't perfect, but I could almost see myself in him…" his voice trailed off as he rested his gaze on the still form on the table, the Loompa scientist brightening suddenly. "That's it!"

"What?" Wonka looked down to him in question.

"We can't bring Charlie back…not the one you found, anyway. We know too little about him to bring him back entirely. But what would happen say, if we only brought a part of him back, the parts that you liked so much about him?"

Wonka furrowed his brow. "What do you mean? What would the rest of him be, then?"

"You, sir. You always said you wish someone like you could take over your factory if you had to leave. So why not a clone of you?"

Willy rested his hand on his chin. "Hmmm…that is an interesting idea, but I didn't quite mean it like that, not that literally. Besides, what about my heir? Where would Charlie…" he said the name gently, "…come into this? I did choose _him_, after all."

"Genetic splicing, sir. We could take certain traits from him that are favorable and graft it into your own. His neural programming would consist of memories and experiences from both you and Charlie Bucket, but as we know little about Charlie, your mental patterns would be the dominant ones."

"Have you done that sort of thing before?"

The Loompa gave a thin smile. "A few times, but without the neural programming…on the chocolate and strawberry cows, and the chickens that lay chocolate eggs. It's a fairly simple process…it just takes time."

Willy nodded slowly. "Very well. Proceed at your leisure, but…only splice the DNA. Don't make the clone…not yet."

The Loompa tipped his head. "Why not? You could pick up where you left off, and begin to teach him everything."

"It's just too soon." Wonka sighed, his eyes filled with grief. The scientist nodded in understanding. "As you wish, sir. I'll just, uh, get the genetic coding together, and have a few samples put in storage until you are ready to proceed. We'll begin compiling the desired thought processes and patterns for future uploading once the clone is ready to be produced."

Willy dipped his head. "Thank you." he said the words softly, turning to leave the lab for what he felt might be the last time, but he paused before passing through the door. "When it's ready, have one of the samples sent to me…for safekeeping."

The scientist looked strangely at him, but nodded. "Of course, sir."

Wonka walked out, the door closing behind him as he faintly wondered if he would ever be done grieving the loss of little Charlie…and if he could ever get his revenge on Chadworth.


End file.
